


hearts like ours

by storytellingape



Category: Black Mirror, Paterson (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Eventual Romance, Kylux Adjacent Ship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellingape/pseuds/storytellingape
Summary: Pat comes to terms with what's waiting for him at home.





	hearts like ours

**Author's Note:**

> something short for [martianReihiko](https://twitter.com/martianReihiko) though what I would really love is to write something longer. NEXT TIME. WATCH THIS SPACE.

 

 

Pat leaves and takes the dog with him. He leaves, and it’s easy to put one foot in front of the other and not have to think about where he’s going. He’s left before, except this time he only gets as far as the bar down the street before regretting ever stepping foot outside. This downswing in mood shouldn’t be new to him; he gets these …fits every now and then, and they make him want to burst out of his skin. Most of the time he just waits it out, riding the ebb and flow by choking down liquor, or staring blankly at the wallpaper like a lifelong insomniac. Tonight he opts for the former. He leaves the dog, Marvin, leashed outside. 

The bar is filled with the usual patrons, lit by a dreamlike glow that bathes the sidewalk in glossy flashes. Pat sits at the counter, orders his usual, takes a sip of his beer and listens to snatches of conversations that go on around him. There are just about enough people for the clink of glass to still be heard above the white noise of the jukebox playing something too soft to be recognized — Iggy Pop, maybe, or David Bowie. Pat’s heard the song before but is unable place it. He leaves the bar when his head starts getting fuzzy, sliding money on the counter next to his half-empty pint. Truthfully, he isn’t even all that drunk, and he even convinces himself of the fact on the short walk home. He resolutely tries not to think about what’s waiting for him there, or _who_ , but his heart begins to pound noticeably on the last few blocks back. Finally, he’s standing outside his house with Marvin tugging impatiently at his leash. Pat rights the mailbox that’s started to list sideways, but really, he’s just stalling. He puts the key in the lock, and the rest of his keys rattle with an ugly noise when he pushes the door open.

Light from the sidewalk spills through the open doorway, across the pale shape of Ash sitting quietly in the dark. He has one elbow propped up on the table, a book tipped open in his lap: _Billy Collins’ The Art of Drowning_ , from Pat’s own collection in the basement, tattered and dogeared, and Pat feels like he’s drowning himself, caught in the undertow of this new life, this mess he’s managed to stumble his way into blindly, the day he wrangled Ash from the dumpster and thought he could fix him, this thing that only looked human.

Ash is exactly where Pat has left him, like he hasn’t moved at all, like he’s stayed put because, because Pat had told him to. He lifts his head when the dog comes barreling in, scrambling up to its favourite perch on the stuffed armchair by the window, panting with its tongue out. 

Ash blinks up at him, once, and Pat is suddenly struck by how human the action is. He takes him in — the knobby knees, the awkward haircut that looks like it’s just starting to settle, his shirt untucked at the back like he’s just gotten out of bed — and fights the urge to look away. Instead, he swallows and undoes his jacket which is zipped all the way up to the collar to stave off the chill that’s starting to settle into the air. He hangs it on a hook behind the door, running his hand down one of the sleeves. Again, stalling. 

When he flicks the light back on, Ash doesn’t even blink. 

“I’m home,” Pat says, at last. 

Ash puts the book down. The chair he’s sitting on makes a whinging noise on the linoleum when he stands to his full height. He looks nothing like an android. For one, he has terrible posture, and thin, delicate hands. But when he hurts himself on a sharp object, his skin doesn’t bleed because it’s made of synthetic material, and he never has to eat. And yet Pat has caught him laughing, once, at a joke he’d heard on television. He shouldn’t be here, by all accounts, standing in Pat’s kitchen, looking at Pat the way he is now — and yet: 

“Welcome back,” Ash says, the seam of his mouth curving up into something tentative, shaky.

Pat steps inside and shuts the door behind him. “I hope you didn’t wait too long,” he says.

“Not at all,” Ash tells him, “I knew you’d be back eventually.”

“Of course I would be back,” Pat says, before kissing him, there under the soft light of the kitchen, his hand spanning Ash’s waist. “I’m here,” he says, again. “I’m home.”


End file.
